What's in store for the UK in 2023? Here's one economist's view
What's in store for the UK in 2023? Here's one economist's view
Last year was an eventful one for the UK which lost its longest-serving monarch, went through two prime ministers, and faced economic stagnation, financial turmoil, rampant inflation and a cost of living crisis. To kick off 2023, UK prime minister Rishi Sunak set out five priorities, leading with pledges to halve inflation, boost economic growth and cut national debt, as well as addressing NHS waiting lists and the issue of immigrants arriving to the UK in small boats. Continued here |
Why food deprivation in childhood is linked to obesity
PhD Candidate in the Nutrition, Psychopharmacology & Brain Development Unit, University of Salford As energy prices rise and the cost of living goes up, it is estimated that there are 4 million children from poorer households who have limited or uncertain access to healthy food. Continued here |
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Centenaire de Ousmane Semb
Le 1er janvier 2023 marque le centenaire de la naissance d’Ousmane Sembène, le romancier et cinéaste sénégalais salué comme le “père du cinéma africain”. Au cours de cinq décennies, Sembène a publié 10 livres et réalisé 12 films à travers trois périodes distinctes. Il a été célébré pour ses œuvres politiques magnifiquement conçues, dont le style va du réalisme psychologique de La Noire de … en 1966 à la satire mordante de Xala (La Malédiction) en 1974. Depuis sa mort en 2007, le statut de pionnier de Sembène n'a cessé de s'affirmer. Mais la variété et la richesse de son œuvre, sa capacité à se réinventer en tant qu'artiste, ont souvent été négligées. À l'occasion de son centenaire, il convient de se pencher sur ce qui a fait de lui une présence créative aussi remarquable. Continued here |
College students who work more hours are less likely to graduate
Students who work while enrolled in college are about 20% less likely to complete their degrees than similar peers who don’t work, a large and meaningful decrease in predicted graduation rates. Among those who do graduate, working students take an average 0.6 of a semester longer to finish. This is mainly because students who work large amounts – over 15 hours a week – take fewer college credits per semester. To learn more about how work might affect a student’s chances of graduation, we examined 17 years of data – 2001 to 2017 – from the state of Tennessee. We matched college student records to employment records for about 600,000 students. We compared working students with those who did not work but were otherwise similar in terms of family income, high school GPA, location and demographic characteristics. We also looked at college progress for students who worked during some semesters but not in others, to see whether they were more successful in completing their classes in semesters when they did not work. Continued here |
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What the FDA's rule changes allowing the abortion pill mifepristone to be dispensed by pharmacies mean in practice - 5 questions answered
In early January 2023, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration modified its rules for mifepristone, a drug used for medication abortion, allowing it to be offered with a prescription by certified pharmacies. Before this rule change, mifepristone could be dispensed only in person by providers at hospitals, clinics and medical offices, as well as by some mail-order pharmacies. The Conversation asked Grace Shih, a family physician practicing in Washington, to explain the significance of this change for health care providers and their patients. Continued here |
Bivalent COVID vaccines have now been in use for a few months - here's how they're stacking up against omicron
Vaccines have played a major role in mitigating the harms of the COVID pandemic since their rollout began just over two years ago. They’re estimated to have saved tens of millions of lives around the globe. The initial crop of COVID vaccines was designed to train our immune systems to recognise the spike protein on the surface of the original strain of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19). But as we well know, since SARS-CoV-2 was first identified it has continued to mutate and evolve into a range of distinct variants. Continued here |
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Is Europe's new carbon border tax fair for everyone?
Chercheur en économie environnementale, Agence française de développement (AFD) The European Union’s carbon market has shown remarkable success in encouraging industries to green their production processes. Known as the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), it has helped reduce the EU’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by more than 40% in covered sectors. Continued here |
4 Ways This Baby Monitor Company Is Changing the Tech Industry For The Better One of the first changes tech leaders should consider making is improving paid maternity and paternity leave. Continued here |
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France's undisputed queens of cheese
In the months leading up to the very first cheese-focused iteration of the Meilleur Ouvrier de France (MOF) competition, held every few years to recognise the country's the best craftspeople, Nathalie Quatrehomme remembers her cheesemonger mother, Marie, taking over the family living room, assembling and disassembling a plexiglass apparatus supporting dozens of different cheeses. "It was 2000, and I was 17," Nathalie recalled. "She practiced building it on our living room table for a whole year." Continued here |
How immortal jellyfish turn back time
Achieving immortality is something that has driven human beings throughout much of their history. Many peculiar legends and fables have been told about the search for the elixirs of life. Medieval alchemists worked tirelessly to find the formula for the philosopher’s stone, which granted rejuvenating powers. Another well-known story is the travels of Juan Ponce de León, who, while conquering the New World, searched for the mysterious fountain of youth. But to this day no one has succeeded in discovering the keys to eternal life. There is, however, one exception – a creature no more than four millimetres in size Turritopsis dohrnii, also known as “the immortal jellyfish”. Continued here |
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How the 1-Minute Rule Can Make Your Life More Serene and Successful in 2023 Want a clearer mind and more focus? Then always follow this dead simple rule. Continued here |
Gender recognition certificates: self-identification and the row over it explained
The UK’s equalities minister, Kemi Badenoch, has announced a review of the list of countries whose gender recognition certificates are recognised by the UK. This could mean that transgender people from more than 40 countries may not have their legal gender recognised by the UK government. The move comes just weeks after Scotland became the first part of the UK to introduce a system of self-identification aimed at simplifying how a transgender person legally changes their gender. In this sense, the UK government’s actions represent the latest stage of a long and often unpleasant debate over attempts to change the process of gender recognition. Continued here |
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5 types of threat - how those who want to divide us use language to stoke violence
Events like the riots in Brazil, the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection two years before it and the mass shooting at the Colorado LGBTQ nightclub each occurred after certain groups repeatedly directed dangerous rhetoric against others. It’s the reason elected officials in the U.S. have begun examining the role language plays in provoking violence. As a social psychologist who studies dangerous speech and disinformation, I think it’s important for citizens, legislators and law enforcement alike to understand that language can provoke violence between groups. In fact, there are different types of threat in rhetoric that in-groups – people we identify as “us” – use to trigger violence, against out-groups – people we perceive as “them.” Continued here |
Apple Is Stepping Up Its Fight With Google Over Small Businesses Businesses can now control how they appear in Apple Maps, Siri, Safari, and Wallet. Continued here |
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This Secret Trick Is the Single Most Underrated Feature in the Uber App The most useful feature of Uber isn't getting a ride right now. Continued here |
Four ways winter heatwaves affect humans and nature
An extreme winter heatwave meant countries across Europe experienced a record-breaking New Year’s Day. New daily temperature records for the month of January were set in at least eight countries: Belarus, Czechia, Denmark, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Netherlands and Poland. In many cases the temperatures were not just breaking the old highs, but smashing them by massive margins. On a typical January day in Warsaw, Poland, temperatures would barely go above freezing, yet the city recently experienced 19℃, breaking the previous January high by 5.1℃. Continued here |
How Chaucer's medieval Wife of Bath was tamed and then liberated in the 21st century
Chaucer’s Wife of Bath is one of the most famous characters in English literature. Since appearing in the Canterbury tales in 1387, her tale has been rewritten and adapted by authors from the French philosopher Voltaire in the 18th century to the contemporary author Zadie Smith in 2021. As I write in my book, there is something about this fictional, five-times-married, medieval woman that has taken hold of so many writers’ imaginations. Continued here |
Eye movement science is helping us learn about how we think
Eye movement tracking goes back to the 1960s when the first versions of the technology were developed by pioneering scientist Alfred Yarbus. Back then, uncomfortable suction caps were attached to participants’ eyes and reflected light traced their point of focus. Yarbus found we are constantly shifting our gaze, focusing on different parts of the scene in front of us. With every eye movement, different parts of the scene come into sharp focus, and other parts in the edge of our vision become blurry. We cannot take it in all at once. Continued here |
This New Year, Resolve Against Workaholism
Employees often go the extra mile by staying late or helping a coworker with an assignment. These actions — known as citizenship behaviors — are especially beneficial to the companies where these employees work. In fact, research shows that employee citizenship behavior enhances both team and company performance. For years, scholars have recognized these behaviors as a core way that supervisors evaluate overall job performance. However, some workers go far beyond common citizenship behaviors and cross important work-life boundaries — by using their own money for company expenses, working during vacations, or canceling plans to spend time with their families, for instance. These extreme citizenship behaviors can be detrimental to employee well-being, team culture, and the fabric of our communities. One reason extreme citizenship behaviors are so damaging is that they create social norms that can be challenging to abandon — for example, pulling one all-nighter for a project can lead to two all-nighters for the next assignment. Indeed, social norms can be even more powerful than formal rules and regulations. As individuals witness others’ attempts to win the boss’s favor, they may feel obligated to follow suit by mimicking a coworker’s extreme citizenship behavior even though it conflicts with their own life arrangements. Ultimately, these overextensions can lead to fatigue, unethical behavior, turnover, and work-family conflict. Continued here |
3 Priceless Things Elon Musk Has Lost Since Buying Twitter Money, power, and the right to be wrong. Continued here |
Why Attention is Everything When It Comes to Business Growth What you actually focus your time, effort, and energy on tells a lot about your priorities. Continued here |
What is racial battle fatigue? A school psychologist explains
When William A. Smith, a scholar of education and culture, introduced the term “racial battle fatigue” in 2003, he used it to describe the cumulative effects of racial hostility that Black people – specifically faculty and graduate students – experience at predominantly white colleges and universities. In short, it takes a toll on their psychological, physical and emotional well-being. As a concept, racial battle fatigue is rooted in critical race theory, which holds that racism is systemic and embedded in legal systems and policies, not just something that takes place on an interpersonal level. Continued here |
Stuck in a Heated Argument? Follow the 'ATL-Rule' to Ensure Everyone Wins Scientific study shows we should enter debates looking to learn rather than win. Continued here |
In Times of High Inflation, All Eyes Remain on Your Pricing Strategy Here are three techniques smart business owners can use to deliver results. Continued here |
Quantum computers threaten our whole cybersecurity infrastructure: here's how scientists can bulletproof it
Thirteen, 53 and 433. That’s the size of quantum computers in terms of quantum bits, or qubits, which has significantly grown in the last years due to important public and private investments and initiatives. Obviously, it is not only a mere question of quantity: the quality of the prepared qubits is as important as their number for a quantum computer to beat our existing classical computers, that is, to attain what’s called the “quantum advantage”. Yet it is conceivable that soon quantum-computing devices delivering such an advantage will be available. How would this affect our daily lives? Making predictions is never easy, but it is agreed that cryptography will be altered by the advent of quantum computers. It is an almost trivial statement that privacy is a key issue in our information society: every day, immense amounts of confidential data are exchanged through the Internet. The security of these transactions is crucial and mostly depends on a single concept: complexity or, more precisely, computational complexity. Confidential information remains secret because any eavesdropper wanting to read it needs to solve an extremely complex mathematical problem. Continued here |
Tanzania's tomato harvest goes to waste: solar-powered cold storage could be a sustainable solution
Feeding Africa’s growing population is a big development challenge for governments, policy makers and agriculture experts. Adding to the challenge is the high level of food loss and waste that most small-scale farmers experience. The African Postharvest Losses Information System reports indicate that countries in Africa waste more than 30% of fresh fruits and vegetables through inefficient post-harvest management. The impact of this loss and waste is severe on smallholders who rely on farming for a living. The Rockefeller Foundation has warned that inefficient post-harvest infrastructure could cause millions of agriculture-dependent households in Africa to fall back into extreme poverty. Continued here |
Citron: The exquisite fruit that brings rabbis
Every summer, in preparation for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, Hasidic rabbis from all over the world travel to the northern part of Italy's Calabria region to handpick the best citron fruits for their lulav, the bundle of four plants used to bless the small, temporary huts built every autumn by Jews to celebrate the holiday. For about two weeks, the orchards around the town of Santa Maria del Cedro fill up with English, Russian, Hebrew and Yiddish-speaking rabbis and their families. With the help of local farmers, they inspect the trees and analyse the fruits, sometimes with magnifying glasses, in their quest for citron perfection. The most ancient and aromatic of all citrus fruits, citrons are far less known than their renowned yellow and orange cousins. They resemble large, green lemons, have more peel than pulp, and with a sour-bitter flavour, they are not considered desirable for home consumption. This means that, outside of Calabria, you won't typically find them at the supermarket. Continued here |
Ukraine war: life on Russia's home front after ten months of conflict
It’s been a year since I last visited Russia. Back then, most people I met thought the prospects of a war with Ukraine were very remote, despite the massive troops build-up on the border. So I was curious to see how attitudes had changed since then. Equally important was to see for myself how the war has changed life in Russia. The first surprise was how normal life was. Despite all the media reports of doom and gloom as a result of western sanctions, everything works just as before. Domestic banking is working, salaries and pensions are paid on time, ubiquitous e-commerce is bustling with activity, the shops are stuffed with food and consumer goods. In St Petersburg, at least, I’ve struggled to notice any change in daily life compared to January 2021. Continued here |
The Wagyu Olympics: The quest for the world's best beef
There's a unique competition in Japan that's reminiscent of the Westminster Dog Show, where animals are celebrated for their beauty, breeding and other attributes. But unlike their canine comrades, this contest is about food, these animals are cows, and the winning breeders get the opportunity to sell their cattle and carcasses to the best restaurants and butchers in the world at the highest price. This is the Japanese Wagyu Olympics, and these are high "steaks". But that's only half of the story. Continued here |
An epic food journey in the Arctic Circle
Fabled for its off-the-beaten track location, gourmet restaurant Koks is now even harder to reach. It has uprooted from the Faroe Islands, and until 2023, moved to a small village in western Greenland that's located more than 200km inside the Arctic Circle. Here, rugged nature serves up a wild harvest of seafood and game, from prawns and halibut to reindeer and muskox (a horned and shaggy-haired bovine that resembles a bison). Continued here |
The Kremlin and elites in times of war
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russian president Vladimir Putin’s political strategy has underlined that economic, military and political power is in his hands. The most obvious demonstration of Putin’s authoritarian rule has consisted of extended meetings with his government’s security council, whose members seem to merely approve the president’s decisions. Meanwhile, key regime elites within the law enforcement agencies, the Federal Security Service (FSB), oligarchs, the United Russia party, the National Guard and state-owned media are caught in the middle of a brutal war, economic pressures and societal discontent. Continued here |
3 Principles For Effective Goal-Setting In 2023 How to set realistic goals for this year. Continued here |
In Just 3 Words, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy Redefined the Company and Taught a Lesson to Every CEO Amazon announced 18,000 layoffs. Here's what almost everyone missed. Continued here |
The rise of 'one-and-done' parenting
When Jen Dalton got pregnant in 2018, she made a spreadsheet. Taking into account maternity leave, family-spacing health recommendations and even potential family holidays, she planned out when to have each of the four kids she thought she wanted. "I look at it once in a while and I giggle at how naïve I was," says Dalton, 31. That’s because, just two months after her daughter's birth, she and her husband decided they were 'one and done'. Part of it was their struggle with sleep deprivation and mental health; Dalton dealt with a traumatic birth, postnatal depression (PND) and postpartum anxiety (PPA). But even when life became easier, the decision felt right. Continued here |
Triggering cancer cells to become normal cells -
Postdoctoral Scholar in Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering Traditionally, cancer treatments like chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiation and surgery focus on killing cancer cells. Another type of treatment using stem cells called differentiation therapy, however, focuses on persuading cancer cells to become normal cells. Continued here |
Rishi Sunak's new law could force workers to break strikes
Amid ongoing strikes across multiple sectors, Rishi Sunak’s government has announced plans to introduce new legislation that would dramatically tighten restrictions on unions in England, Scotland and Wales. The strikes (minimum service levels) bill, currently being debated in parliament, would mean that people working in border security, education, the fire brigade, transport, the NHS and nuclear decommissioning would have to maintain minimum levels of service on strike days. So some teachers or nurses, for example, would be expected to work, regardless of whether they are a union member or not. Continued here |
Owamni: A (r)evolution of indigenous foods
On the back patio at Owamni – the Minneapolis, Minnesota, restaurant owned by Sean Sherman and Dana Thompson – the late-evening sun cast my dessert in a natural spotlight. Marigold-coloured agave squash caramel cascaded slowly down the sides of a sunflower-seed cake the colour of sandstone, and a deep red berry sauce shimmered atop a maple chaga cake so earthy in tone, it felt as though it were plucked from the forest floor. The connection to nature is palpable here, where sweeping views of the Mississippi River, along with curated indigenous plants like prairie dropseed – whose high-protein seeds can be eaten raw or ground into a flour – etch themselves into the landscape like a painting. Continued here |
Sahlab: The Middle East's answer to the latte
Whether it's ladled from a Bethlehem street vendor's steaming urn or savoured around a California kitchen table, the holiday drink sahlab tells a story in each sip. The first taste is as warming and floral as its sunlit origins. The second reveals a viscous texture as silky as orchid petals. And with the third comes the first hints of its history, the rich flavours of the Levant and the spices of holiday traditions that reach across religions and stretch back centuries. In the kitchen of cookbook author Blanche Shaheen, steam drifts from small cups, carrying scents that recall the passing of seasons, late winter orange blossoms and the roses of spring. For Shaheen, sahlab isn't simply the winter holiday drink her mother taught her to make. It's also a story of family and the persistence of culture. Continued here |
The world's surprising fried chicken capital
The little karaage, one of the most popular snacks in Japan, is a delicate and intricate version of fried chicken that is a staple across the country. This delightfully crunchy treat is so beloved that every year, hundreds of thousands of people vote in a country-wide competition to determine which karaage shop serves the best ones. While shops from massive metropolises like Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka should be dominating any large-scale contest, it's shops from one small town, Nakatsu City, located in the Oita prefecture on the southern island of Kyushu, that typically garner the most awards. The Karaage Grand Prix is the annual competition in Japan whose winner gets to boast that they have the crispiest, juiciest, most flavourful fried chicken, and nearly 1,000 shops enter to compete. Up until 2022, this contest was based entirely on popularity, with common denizens getting to vote on their favourite places. But in 2023, the rules are changing, judges are being brought in to taste test, and the true crown for the best karaage will ultimately be rewarded. Continued here |
New Zealand's overlooked indigenous cuisine
On any night in Auckland, you can have your pick of world cuisine, whether you're hankering for hand-pulled biang biang noodles swathed in chilli oil, or a Margherita pizza cooked by someone holding official Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana certification. Māori, the first inhabitants of New Zealand, were thought to have arrived sometime in the 1300s by canoe from East Polynesia (though the exact date of their arrival is still debated). Their original diet was largely foraged food such as wild ferns, vines, palms, fungi, fruit and seeds, plus root crops like yams and sweet potatoes from their homeland – as well as hunted birds and seafood. But despite nearly 17% of New Zealand’s population identifying as Māori, indigenous cuisine is not widely available. Continued here |
Why 2023 is a make-or-break year for Keir Starmer's Labour party
Founding Director of the Sir Bernard Crick Centre for the Public Understanding of Politics, University of Sheffield Labour has understandably begun 2023 in an upbeat mood. Polls give the party around 45% of the vote and with the Conservatives on just 19%, power once again feels within reach. Continued here |
Mahua: The Indian liquor the British banned
I smelled the sweet flowers before I saw them. During an early morning drive inside the Similipal National Park in the east Indian state of Odisha, I had stopped near a picturesque waterfall where thousands of pale-green blooms were falling from the surrounding trees and carpeting the forest floor. "These are mahua trees," said Suresh Kisku, my guide from the Santhal tribal community. He pointed towards the cluster of short, stout trunks and dome-shaped canopies that edged a small clearing. Continued here |
Elephant poaching rates vary across Africa: 19 years of data from 64 sites suggest why
This work arises from a consultancy from the UN CITES Monitoring Illegal Killing of Elephants programme, to E.J. Milner-Gulland and Tim Kuiper (CITES project S-598), which was funded by the European Union. The consultancy brief was to identify and analyse covariates of illegal killing across MIKE sites, and a peer-reviewed paper was one of the planned outputs. Potentially relevant group memberships: I am currently a Trustee of WWF-UK and a member of the IUCN-SSC Sustainable Use and Livelihoods specialist group. It’s a grim and all too common sight for rangers at some of Africa’s nature reserves: the bullet-riddled carcass of an elephant, its tusks removed by poachers. African elephant populations have fallen by about 30% since 2006. Poaching has driven the decline. Continued here |
How To Make Products Pop: The Basics of E-Commerce Photography High-quality, visually appealing photos can make the difference between a customer clicking "add to cart" or moving on. Continued here |
The 'kraken' COVID variant XBB.1.5 is rising quickly in the US - here's what it could mean for the UK
The heavily-mutated omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was first detected in late 2021. Due to the many mutations in the spike protein (a protein on the surface of SARS-CoV-2 that allows the virus to attach to our cells) omicron was able to quickly become the dominant SARS-CoV-2 variant. These mutations allowed it to bind to respiratory cells more tightly than previous variants, rendering it more infectious. Continued here |
AI and the future of work: 5 experts on what ChatGPT, DALL-E and other AI tools mean for artists and knowledge workers
Lynne Parker is affiliated with two non-profit organizations -- the Center for New American Security as an adjunct senior fellow, and the Special Competitive Studies Project as an expert advisor. From steam power and electricity to computers and the internet, technological advancements have always disrupted labor markets, pushing out some jobs while creating others. Artificial intelligence remains something of a misnomer – the smartest computer systems still don’t actually know anything – but the technology has reached an inflection point where it’s poised to affect new classes of jobs: artists and knowledge workers. Continued here |
Penguin feathers help inspire new de-icing techniques
Walking down a road during a white winter comes with its own set of challenges: the frigid cold, stepping around slippery ice on roads and the need to switch sidewalks to avoid dagger-sharp icicles that could potentially fall from above. This accumulated ice on roofs and rain gutter overhangs is not merely an annoyance and danger, but also requires tremendous efforts to remove. Standard ice removal techniques rely on mechanical, thermal or chemical action. Continued here |
A fish that sparked a national obsession
On a cold winter's evening in Portugal, it might come to your table com natas – fresh from the oven and bubbling in cream – layered between fried potato and sliced onion and spiced with nutmeg. Weaving through Lisbon's steep and cobbled streets, it wouldn't take long before you found someone serving it as a light and crispy fritter, dusted with a little coarse salt and dished up with a pot of pungent aioli. You could buy it shaped as mouth-sized fried potato dumplings pastéis style, flavoured with parsley and garlic, for a walk along the banks of Porto's Douro River. You might even come across it as part of a hearty southern bread soup, topped with coriander and a poached egg. That's because bacalhau – or salt cod – which sits at the heart of all these dishes, runs deep through Portugal's culinary identity, with the country consuming 20% of the world's supply. In fact, so central to Portuguese hearts (and stomachs) is this ingredient, that the saying goes "there are 365 ways to prepare salted cod, one for each day of the year". Continued here |
Coriander: The unsung hero of Indian cuisine
Peek inside any Indian spice box, and you'll likely find the holy trifecta of spices – turmeric, red chilli powder and ground coriander (often mixed with cumin) – that forms the base of many a curry, lentil or vegetable dish. Though it lacks the striking ochre hue of haldi (turmeric) and isn't associated with any of India's signature red-hot flavours (like chilli powder), coriander (commonly called dhaniya or kothmir in India) is perhaps the most versatile of these spices. Its coarsely ground seeds bring warmth and nuttiness to many dishes, while as a powder, it can be used to thicken curries. As an herb, its fresh stalks and leaves often serve as an aromatic and tangy finishing flavour. Continued here |
If You're Burnt Out You Might Unknowingly Be Using This 1 App the Wrong Way
The solution is incredibly simple-and it's at your fingertips.Continued here
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